Agenda item

Report of the Chamberlain.

The Committee considered a report of the Chamberlain which provided updates regarding the top risks within the Departmental Risk Register.

Officers pointed out that, for the foreseeable future the Corporation is in a robust position vis-à-vis procurement post Brexit. In the event of a transition period being agreed, the OJEU rules and portal would continue to be extant until 31^st December 2020. If there were no deal, the rules would remain consistent in the medium-term, but an alternative portal would be established (this was currently being worked on by the Cabinet Office), essentially under both scenarios, it would remain business-as- usual.

The longer-term impacts were less clear, and officers would continue to monitor any Government discussions around future proposals for changing OJEU procedures. It was also likely that supply chains would face disruption and the availability of construction workers would come under pressure; the degree of this disruption remains, for now, unknown; in mitigation, the Chairman pointed to the recent elimination of the £65 fee for EU workers to register in the UK as an encouraging indication of the Government’s ambition to support business.

A Member raised concerns that Billingsgate Market had received EU grant funding and queried what would happen after Brexit; the Deputy Chamberlain responded that this was a one-off grant, but it would be remiss not to consider whether the Corporation needed to financially support Billingsgate after Brexit. The Chairman stressed that officers needed to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks when EU grant funding is withdrawn after Brexit.

The Deputy Chairman indicated that a full discussion of the information security risk would take place at the 4^th February meeting of the Digital Services Sub-Committee.

RESOLVED – That the Committee notes the report.